Plate IIIConstructed
The construction in 13 steps

Trefoil

Three lobes centred on an equilateral triangle, one of the commonest openings in Gothic window tracery. The masons’ booklets of the 1480s set out pinnacles and gables as pure procedure: a module, a square, the next step. They record methods, not meanings.

Sources

  • Mathes Roriczer, Büchlein von der Fialen Gerechtigkeit, 1486
  • Hanns Schmuttermayer, Fialenbüchlein, about 1488